


Out of the Storm

by claudia603



Category: Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003)
Genre: Gen, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-07
Updated: 2010-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-08 18:49:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claudia603/pseuds/claudia603
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo and Frodo get a visitor one rainy evening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of the Storm

_Frodo thought of Bilbo and the long friendship with the dwarf, and of Balin's visit to the Shire long ago._  
\---The Bridge of Khazad-dum

 

The windows of Bag End rattle, and lightning flickers again and again, illuminating the shadows of waving tree branches. Bilbo paces in the front room, pipe between his teeth. He feels edgy and fidgety. His joints ache especially fiercely and he thinks it will be a hard winter for old bones. He is getting up in age, though he continues to look not a day over fifty.

"Uncle Bilbo, what troubles you?" Frodo asks. He sits at the table by the window that looks out onto the lush garden, hunched over a dusty mess of maps. A lantern flickers beside him in soft, golden light. He smoothes one of the parchments and runs his fingers over lands he will likely never see. Now his finger pauses over the sketched snake of a distant river as if he is keeping his daydream in place. He looks at Bilbo with concern.

Sweet, dear Frodo, Bilbo thinks, always patient with my queerness.

Especially when he takes these odd, restless turns, where his memories are so sharp that his adventures seem only a year ago and not fifty, and darkness seeps into the corners of his mind and he fumbles with urges better kept thwarted and buried. Although his pocket is empty, he twists the fabric of his pocket between his forefinger and thumb.

_Don't use it so much, if ever,_ he warns himself, _it makes you feel poorly later. Stretched out and used. Worse than that, watched._

Today he has hidden the Ring. He knows himself well, and he knows that within a few hours he will give into the itch and pick it up again, just to feel its smooth golden perfection between his fingers, just to know that it is safe and _his_.

"Not much wrong, lad. It's only the storm. My joints are getting too old to handle the rain and chill these days."

"Nonsense," Frodo says, but his expressive eyes flicker with worry.

"Never you fear." Bilbo claps Frodo on the back. "I'll be doddering around for many years to come, so many that you're apt to wish otherwise."

"Bilbo!" Frodo chastises, but he laughs.

"Ah, why don't you get us some tea brewed, there's a good lad!" Bilbo fumbles for his pipe on the mantel.

"All right." Frodo rises from his seat. "But you'd best come have a seat by the fire. Perhaps you should just tell me one of your tales from the adventure instead of letting them all spin about in your head."

Bilbo should not be surprised by how deeply Frodo seems to read him.

"You're not tired of them all yet?" Bilbo asks. In truth, he does feel like going on about the quest, but not the parts that Frodo probably wants and expects to hear. He does not feel like talking about Elves or magic Rings or dragons or giant spiders.

A battering at the door makes them both jump nearly out of their skins.

"Goodness gracious!" Bilbo jumps to his feet. "Who is coming at such a late hour and in such weather."

"Gandalf!" Frodo stands, his face alight with eagerness.

"Coming, coming!" Bilbo calls.

The banging at the door repeats, louder this time.

"Half a moment!" Bilbo says, thinking he'll give Gandalf a piece of his mind for making a poor old hobbit rush so.

He yanks open the door. He looks up, expecting to see the tall gray figure of Gandalf, and is pleasantly surprised to find a dwarf there. The dwarf is so bundled up against the weather that Bilbo cannot tell who he is.

"A night fit for goblins," the dwarf says, but he does not step inside. Bilbo catches a glimpse of the kind, wizened face of Balin under the heavy bundling. "But I cannot stay."

"Cannot stay? Nonsense!" Bilbo says, and he tries to take Balin's arm to shuttle him inside, but Balin steps back.

"I only came to drop off a gift. I cannot tarry."

"Is something wrong then?" Bilbo asks. Shadows fall across Balin's face, making his features difficult to distinguish in the driving rain. It is really only his voice that is recognizable. All else is buried in darkness.

"You were always a dear and special friend and I wanted to leave you with this." He thrust his hands outward. In it lay his short, double-bladed axe.

"Your ax? But why?" Bilbo frowns. Balin surely knows that a hobbit has no use for an axe, but he's deeply moved. He knows that a dwarf's axe is like another limb. "Do you not still need it? Surely there are more goblins left in this world to hew."

"I no longer have need of it where I go," Balin says. Sadness tints his voice, and Bilbo wishes desperately that he could say something of comfort to his friend. Balin waits for Bilbo to take the axe, which he does.

"It is yours," Balin continues. "I trust it to nobody else that is living."

"Who is it?" Frodo calls from the front room. "Gandalf?"

"Not Gandalf," Bilbo responds to Frodo. "I'll be right there, lad." He turns his attention fully to Balin. "I do wish you would stay, at least for some tea. It's a ferocious, dark night out there."

Balin bows. "Farewell, dear friend."

"Come again soon," Bilbo makes an effort at hobbity cheer, although the ax is heavy in his hands, and the rain has soaked and made ice of his fingers.

Without another word Balin turns and leaves. Bilbo is struck by the silence of Balin's treads. Perhaps the storm disguises the sounds, but dwarves are typically loud and blustery, and Balin walks as silently as an Elf at twilight. He passes through the gate and fades into the darkness of the road.

Bilbo closes the door and returns to the front room, still holding the icy axe in two hands.

"Who was it calling so late if not Gandalf?" Frodo asks, visibly disappointed.

"An old friend who could not stay," Bilbo says. He does not know why he is being secretive with Frodo, aside from a deep knowledge that Balin's visit was meant for him and him alone. Some day he will tell Frodo about it, but not this night.

He looks around the room and wonders where he can display an axe that has earned such honor.

END


End file.
